[God luvs America]

I know the story...the GOP then wanted Mike Ditka to run for the seat and he would’ve been a shoe-in to win- it probably would not have been close....Ditka declined and the GOP had to search for another candidate (a black guy whose name i don’t remember)...

The irony is Ditka was an out spoken obama hater years later- but he could’ve prevented it all had he accepted the GOP’s invite to run as their candidate.

[dznutz]

.Ditka declined and the GOP had to search for another candidate (a black guy whose name i don’t remember)...

Obozo defeated Alan Keyes.

[grey_whiskers]

The black guy was Alan Keyes, who had a conservative radio show (IIRC out of Baltimore) before that point.

[MinorityRepublican]

The irony is Ditka was an out spoken obama hater years later- but he could’ve prevented it all had he accepted the GOP’s invite to run as their candidate.

Barack Obama had that unique appeal to the masses like what we saw in Zohran Mamdani in NYC, even if Ditka ran against Obama, Obama would still have won in '04.

The only way he would have lost is that if he was involved in some scandal.